Stitch A Long #1

I am gatecrashing a monthly get together that Kate at Tall Tales of Chiconia hosts. Edited correction ~ apparently I not only gatecrashed the party, but got the address completely wrong! It’s not at Kate’s house, although she does write a mighty fine blog, but rather at Avis’. She blogs at Sewing Beside the Sea and hosts the Stitch Along where each month a group of stitchers post progress on their stitching, work that is purely for pleasure.

However, you may not know that I create tapestries, where I interpret a photo with yarn. They are landscapes, and, of course, usually include a tree or too. Like this one from my time as artist in residence in Flinders Island. I loved the weather beaten landscape and the coastal heathlands.

Or this one from the outback landscape around Menindee, NSW. Very few trees in that environment!

Winter is a great season to create these as Summer is too hot to work with wools and the the canvas crumples.

So time to get going on a new one, from a photo taken at Portsea during my artist in residence at Police Point.

There are strong diagonals in this photo, which lead the eye to the focal point of the tree and there are darks to give contrast. As well I loved the texture of the cliff face, and my fingers are itching to work there, and the twisty trunk of the moonah tree, is a joy.

I set up the tapestry canvas with minimal guide lines, and began with the sky, using variegated blue wool and tent stitch.

The clouds were trickier. I thought a beautiful silk thread I had would be right, but it didn’t work. A hunt in my stash gave me the perfect wool ~ white with a slight roughness, which gave the cloud the fluffiness I was looking for. The beginnings of it are at the bottom of the cloud. I used a cross stitch to give it more bulk.

You can see why I was dissatisfied with the silk. I had to carefully unstitch the silk thread, which is handprinted and expensive. No way was I going to chop it up.

Much happier.

I am looking forward to selecting the yarns, and stitches, for the next part, which will probably be the background foliage. I am excited to see what emerges!

Next time I hope to include a link to others who are taking part in the Stitch-A-Long.

Love your colour choices, and of course, the inspiration is fabulous. I think my favourite is the Menindee one, almost a monochromatic palette, but with those tremendous flashes of colour. It reminds me of fire and ashes, but then, we all have fire on our minds up here just now…

It was those flashes of red/orange in the Menindee landscape that attracted me in the first place. They are the stems of a very prolific plant, which turn this colour after flowering. I can see the resemblance to glowing fire. I hope you are safe. There are so many tragic fires at the moment.

Thanks Laura. I don’t put them onto Etsy ~ pricing is difficult, and I am not sure of the market, but it’s probably mainly laziness! I am going to revamp the shop and I may well add the tapestries……at some point!

I began my stitching life with lots of needlepoint. I keep wishing I had the nerve to just be creative with present day projects and sometimes I can manage it. That’s why I love this site, Anne…so much creativity is inspiring to me. Thanks for sharing your process.